This invention relates to the field of fluid-material assays. More particularly, it relates to the performance of such an assay in the specific context of employing a significantly improved type of thin-film-based, active-pixel, pixelated assay-response matrix of the kind illustrated and described both in the above-mentioned provisional application, and also in currently co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/827,174, filed Jul. 10, 2007, for “Micro-Pixelated Fluid-Assay Structure”, the full disclosure content of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference.
This active-pixel matrix, which is a digitally accessible and controllable structure linkable to a suitable digital computer, offers a very high degree of controlled, assay-response, pixel-specific sensitivity with respect to which an assay response (a) can be output-read on a precision, pixel-by-pixel basis, and (b) can additionally be examined along uniquely accessible, special, plural and freely selectable, independent-variable “information-gathering axes”, such as a time-based axis, and an electromagnetic-field-variable (light, heat, non-uniform electrical) axis.
This matrix structure with its included electronically active pixels, which structure is preferably employed in the assay-performance practice of the present invention, is formed conveniently on a low-temperature substrate material, such as glass, and may involve, in its underlying construction, low-temperature, internal crystalline-structural processing of a material, such as amorphous silicon, to create some of its pixel-borne structural features. Such crystalline-structural processing is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,125,451 B2, the disclosure content of which patent is also hereby incorporated herein by reference.
More will be stated below herein regarding the interesting features of this representative matrix structure which make it so conveniently useable in the practice of the present invention.
So as to describe fully the important practice aspects of the present method invention, those practice aspects are illustrated and discussed herein in relation to a specific form of pixelated matrix device—the form particularly set forth in depth in the '174 patent application. It should be understood, and it will become apparent, that other device forms may be employed, so long as these other forms include and display certain important structural and behavioral features principally focused on the possession of what are referred to herein as individually, digitally computer addressable active pixels, or the like.
In general terms, the present invention may be described as a method of performing a fluid-material assay employing an appropriately provided (i.e., made available) computer-accessible device (note the discussion above)—preferably a pixelated matrix device, including at least one active digitally-addressable pixel having a sensor with a digitally-addressable assay site functionalized for selected fluid-assay material, with the key steps of this method including, following, of course, providing such a device, exposing the pixel's sensor assay site to such material, and in conjunction with such exposing, and employing the computer-accessible, active nature of the provided device's pixel, remotely and digitally requesting from the pixel's sensor assay site an assay-result output report.
The basic methodology further includes, in relation to the mentioned employing step, creating, relative to the sensor's assay site in the at least one pixel, a predetermined, pixel-specific electromagnetic field environment. The creation of such an environment is enabled by the type of matrix structure described both hereinbelow, and in the '174 patent application, and is specifically enabled by the presence in the described matrix pixels of one or several digitally accessible and energizable electromagnetic field-creating structure(s).
The provided device, referred to above in the just-given general description of the invention, may take on a number of different forms, not necessarily exactly the same as the device form specifically chosen herein to illustrate practice of the invention. Those skilled in the art will appreciate from the disclosure of the invention provided in this document, including the content in the mentioned currently pending, companion Regular U.S. patent application, just how to characterize a pixelated device, and its relevant features and advantages, which will be suitable for use during the performance of an assay in accordance with implementation of the methodology of the present invention.
Accordingly, the various features and advantages of the herein proposed invention methodology will become more fully apparent as the description of the setting and a typical practice of the invention are presented below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.